


Draco Malfoy and the Mandatory P.R.A.T.

by redpenny



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Auror Draco Malfoy, Auror Harry Potter, Aurors, Body Image, Body Worship, Bottom Draco Malfoy, Chubby Draco Malfoy, Chubby Harry Potter, Chubby Kink, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Fat Shaming, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, M/M, Out of Shape, Pining, Weight Gain, Weight Issues, belly appreciation, dieting, injuries, unintentional weight gain, weight loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-15
Updated: 2019-11-04
Packaged: 2020-12-31 02:18:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 19,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21047507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redpenny/pseuds/redpenny
Summary: The last thing he'd needed was the Saviour of the Wizarding World witnessing his humiliation, but at least he can console himself with the knowledge that Potter is even fatter than he is.When Draco fails his yearly Aurors Fitness Assessment, he's made to complete mandatory P.R.A.T. (Physical Rehabilitation of Aurors and Trainees) alongside the very prat he'd managed to avoid for years.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is an enemies to lovers story and perhaps not the _kinkiest_ of chubby kink, but it is, at its core, about two boys who've gotten a bit chubby.

_Ms Hortensia Crickerly, Assistant to the Head of the Aurors_.

Draco glares at the sign on the door and pushes his way inside.

And then halts.

He'd recognize the back of that head anywhere. He's become quite practiced, in fact, at spotting that particular mess of black hair and the fall of Auror robes over those particular shoulders.

He's about to exercise the fine art of self-preservation and back discreetly out of this dingy little office when the man to whom those shoulders and that hair belong turns around.

He'd almost made it five years without accidentally running into the bloody Boy Who Lived. Except now, thanks to _Ms Hortensia Crickerly, Assistant to the Head of the Aurors_, it's all ruined.

"Malfoy?"

At least it's surprise widening the green eyes behind those unfashionably round glasses rather than the anger and disdain he'd been used to.

Though surely the return of the latter is just a matter of time.

"Potter." Draco narrows his eyes at the 'Senior Auror' pin, the 'Order of Merlin, First Class' medal and the various other commendations pinned to his chest.

A stern voice cuts through his seething with "I see you received my summons after all, Auror Malfoy."

He rips his eyes from the prat in the chair to the woman with a stern bun and black work robes behind the desk.

"What is the meaning of this?" Draco demands, crossing his arms tightly. "_Some_ of us have work to do."

Ms Hortensia Crickerly presses her thin lips into a line. "You haven't been cleared to go on assignment yet, as you well know."

"That doesn't mean I can't still have work to do!"

"It's the end of the day, Auror Malfoy. But if you're so concerned about returning to your work, perhaps you'd like to sit down so we can begin."

Draco glares at her, but she glares back, and so, carefully avoiding looking at Potter, he lowers himself into the chair next to him.

At least the pointed reminder that he's not yet been cleared for active assignment seems to indicate that he's not here to be forced into an assignment with The Saviour of the Wizarding World.

The Saviour in question leans in towards him with a quiet, "Hi", but Draco refuses to be tricked into giving him any attention.

"I'm sure you both know why you've been summoned here today," Ms Hortensia Crickerly tells them, pulling two scrolls out from her desk.

"Obviously not," Draco reminds her. "Or I wouldn't have just asked."

"I actually don't either," Potter offers.

Ms Hortensia Crickerly honours them both with an unimpressed look. The lines around her mouth make her look about sixty. Or six hundred. Closer to six hundred, Draco decides.

"Well, Auror Potter, let's start with you."

"Hortensia," Potter sighs next to him. "How many times now have I told you to just call me Harry?"

Draco rolls his eyes.

"Auror Potter," she repeats firmly, and begins unrolling the first scroll. Draco peers at the words at the top: _Record of Health & Fitness, Name: Harry James Potter, Birthdate:..._

He leans in for a better look and is immediately annoyed at finding that the first entry, _Intake Health & Fitness Assessment_ is dated 2 July 1998, two years before his own starting date. He hadn't needed the reminder that The Chosen One hadn't been made to spend a year preparing testimonies for the Wizengamot to save what was left of his family, or to pay for private tutoring to pass his N.E.W.T.s. Or even to take the N.E.W.T.s at all, for that matter.

As Ms Hortensia Crickerly continues unrolling the scroll, Draco does his best to read the tiny words in the long ledger of entries. Entries such as _23 July 2001: Fiendfyre burn to the arm; full recovery_ and _8 March 2003: Failed attempt at cursebreaking; 10 days mandatory recuperation; full recovery_.

At a pointed throat-clearing from the other side of the desk, Draco settles back in his chair and pretends he is above snooping.

Ms Hortensia Crickerly puts a pair of pointy reading glasses on her pointy face and begins reading off the final entry: "23 June 2005: Yearly Health and Fitness Assessment." She looks at Potter. "That was just last week, if you recall."

"Er, yes, I do remember."

Draco, naturally, also remembers all too well the annual occasion during which each auror takes his turn subjecting himself to idiotic exercises around a Quidditch pitch followed by the most inane standardized duels known to wizardkind, only to top it off with an invasive run of spells from a mediwitch.

He tries to take another peek at Potter's record, but he's too far away to make out any of the words on the last line. Any words, that is, aside from the red stamped "UNACCEPTABLE".

Unacceptable. 

Does that mean that _Harry Potter_ has failed the fitness test?

Despite his attempts to avoid any and all mentions of the prat, he would have thought he'd have still caught rumour of any debilitating injury.

He darts a look over at him to assess for any obvious defects, but when he finds big green eyes staring back at him, he remembers he's decided not to pay him any attention and quickly looks away again.

And then, bloody fucking hell, he's struck by the realization of what it means for himself that he was summoned alongside Potter today. Last week's assessment was meant to serve as his own clearance for return to active assignment. Sure, he'll admit his leg had cramped up whilst running, which had led to some trouble with turns on the broomstick, and perhaps his reflexes hadn't been perfectly honed in the duel, either, but he'd been certain he'd still at minimum _passed_.

"It seems you earned your usual Formidable in Spellwork, Agility and Wellness," Ms Hortensia Crickerly is telling Potter. "But merely an Adequate in Speed, which is down, if you'll note, from your Impressive last year, and in Weight—" Draco wouldn't have thought it possible, but she somehow gives Potter an even sterner look. "You will not be surprised to learn you earned an Unacceptable."

Draco blinks, not quite understanding what he's hearing.

"But I still passed, though, right?" Potter sounds a tad optimistic for someone with a big red 'UNACCEPTABLE' stamp on his ledger.

"That would require all scores to be passing, Auror Potter."

"But last year—"

"Last year you were awarded a provisional Disappointing with the understanding you would take care of the issue before the next assessment," she says.

"Take care of what issue?" Draco butts in. They both ignore him.

"Perhaps the same plan this year, then?" Potter's voice goes up hopefully.

"I should think not, Auror Potter," Ms Hortensia Crickerly sounds eerily like McGonagall giving a Slytherin a dressing-down. "Last year, your weight was half a stone over your Standard. The dietary guidelines provided to you should have brought you not only to passing results this year, but closer to Formidable than you've been in the past three years."

Potter fidgets.

"Instead," she continues. "We have found you almost a stone further into the Unacceptable range."

"_What_?" Draco demands, incredulous. He's still struggling to comprehend the Golden Boy of the Wizarding World with anything less than Formidables across the board.

"Erm," Potter says. "I hadn't thought it was that much, actually—"

"Thirteen pounds, to be precise," she states crisply. "And that's added to the seven you were over last year. Which makes you one stone six pounds over the Auror Standard that was personally determined for you, and two stone eight pounds over your peak fitness."

"You got _fat_?" Draco blurts out, whirling around to fully face Potter for the first time.

Potter is squirming in his chair, cheeks flushed when he briefly meets Draco's eyes.

"Auror Malfoy," Ms Hortensia Crickerly reprimands, but Draco ignores her in favour of looking Potter over properly.

Two and a half stone from the perfect fitness Draco had expected Potter would always be in. It's a lot. And so he's rather disappointed to find that Potter does not appear to have properly gone to, well, _pot_.

His face is perhaps not quite as thin as he'd remembered it, but he only has one chin. And it's difficult to fully assess his figure under his robes and cape, but the buttons on his dragonskin chestpiece — or, rather, thanks to Granger's campaigns, poorly transfigured dragonskin — aren't straining over a Slughorn-sized gut. Perhaps there is some thickness to his midsection that pushes it outward where it might have otherwise tapered in, but Draco wouldn't have even noticed if he hadn't known to look for it.

"Auror Potter," Ms Hortensia Crickerly says. "I've been tasked to inform you of your suspension from active assignment until you meet Auror Standards."

"But—"

"These regulations are for your own safety." She gives Potter a look that indicates she'll brook no further protest. "We won't make the mistake of leniency two years in a row. A better example needs to be set for your fellow Aurors. Now—" She passes over an envelope. "Here are your revised exercise and dietary guidelines. For obvious reasons, you may find them stricter than last year's."

"Right," Potter says faintly, taking the envelope with great reluctance.

Draco only has a few seconds to gloat that Potter, for once, is apparently not above the rules, because Ms Hortensia Crickerly then proceeds to unroll the second ledger: _Record of Health & Fitness, Name: Draco Lucius Malfoy..._.


	2. Chapter 2

Draco keeps his eyes averted from his own scroll. He doesn't need to see the 'UNACCEPTABLE' next to the last entry to know it's there. The only question is what aspect they've decided to fail him on. Speed? Agility? Surely not Spellwork. He's already been recently cleared on Wellness.

Ms Hortensia Crickerly begins reading. "24 June 2005: Yearly Health and—"

"Potter," Draco interrupts. "What are you still doing here?"

"What?" Potter looks startled behind his round glasses.

Draco makes a shooing motion towards the door. "Go on now. No need to eavesdrop on your fellow Aurors' private health assessments."

Potter's brow furrows. "But you were just here for mine, though."

"Not of my own free will," he reminds him.

"Auror Malfoy," Ms Hortensia Crickerly cuts in sternly. "Auror Potter will be staying. This concerns the both of you."

"I can't possibly see how," he mutters. But he decides not to attempt the apparently futile task of arguing with the Assistant to the Head of the Aurors, and so he turns back to Potter to inform him, generously, "I suppose you can stay."

"Er, thanks?" Potter, who hasn't even made a motion to leave, says. Draco narrows his eyes.

Ms Hortensia Crickerly opens her mouth to begin again, but Draco interrupts, crossing his arms, "Can we just get to the point so we can be on our way."

Her lips thin into a displeased line, but she says, "As you wish. Auror Malfoy, I've been tasked to inform you that you've failed this year's Yearly Health and Fitness Assessment for Unacceptable marks for Weight and—"

"What?" Draco all but jumps out of his chair. "I did not."

"I said, you've failed for Unacceptable marks for Weight—"

"You read that wrong," he insists.

She looks at him over her pointy glasses. "You are eleven pounds over your prior weight, which puts you at four pounds over your Standard."

"You can't fail him for that, though," Potter interrupts. "Not when you gave me a Disappointing last year for twice that."

"Well, we wouldn't have if you'd also earned an Unacceptable in Speed," she says. "Auror Malfoy was forty-seven seconds over a passing time."

"But he was just injured," Potter protests, building up to the grating righteousness that's all too familiar even after all these years. "It took them a week at St Mungo's to even figure out the curse that hit him, and by then—"

"I don't need you defending me, Potter," Draco snaps.

"Auror Potter—"

"He almost died, Hortensia!"

There's a moment of silence in the room, broken only by Ms Hortensia Crickerly's unimpressed look.

"Auror Potter, are you quite through now?"

Potter looks a bit chagrined.

"Then perhaps you will allow me to point out that if he can't run away fast enough he might do more than _almost_ die on his next assignment. Is that what you want?"

Draco slams the toilet door with a locking charm, throws off his Auror robes, and then glares at the dirty pub mirror.

He's not even sure how he'd got here. Except, of course, that it was Potter's fault. After they'd finally been released from that infernal meeting, it had been a blur of him asking if he wanted to join him at the pub and Draco being too distracted plotting revenge on one Ms Hortensia Crickerly to say no in time.

Which finds him in a pub off Diagon Alley with an obviously forged Department of Hygiene Inspection Certification.

He eyes his reflection critically. At least he still has the Malfoy features going for him, which are a good deal sharper than Potter's. And his robes don't give away a single extra pound.

Of course, he had just had them re-tailored two weeks prior, when he'd been finally cleared for return to work, if not to active assignment.

He's not in the habit of lying to himself — not after a childhood made up of nothing but lies — and so he'd known that the months of recovery had left him a bit further from the svelte figure he would have preferred.

But he hadn't realized he'd let it get this bad.

He tosses his waistcoat over to join his robes and yanks open his shirt to look for the extra weight that's allegedly settled there.

The _stone and a half_, apparently, over the bloody conjured number they liked to remind him every year they'd prefer him a bit closer to. In five years, he's never been all that close to it, but he's also certainly never been _four pounds too fat to be an Auror_.

He eyes his reflection. He's not quite used to the sight of the gnarled and discoloured skin of his chest, his hip, and disappearing down under his trousers where he can still feel the faint burning of it all the way to his knee.

With it on the right and the Mark that hasn't faded from his left arm, he likes to joke that he no longer has a "good side".

No one seems to appreciate his sense of humour, though.

Even after a cleaning charm, the mirror's too streaked and scratched to make out most of his few other scars. But it can't hide the flab on his stomach any better than it can hide what Hecate's Curse has left him with.

The roll of fat pushing over the waist of his trousers is hardly a surprise. It's been his stubborn companion for years. Perhaps it's a bit thicker than usual, but he'd already known that.

The way his middle creases into two flabby rolls when he moves _is_ new, though. He pinches the top one and glances back at the mirror. His hips, even the scarred one, seem to settle a bit softer over his trousers than usual.

Perhaps this is what a stone and a half over svelte looks like. 

He resignedly sets to buttoning his shirt back up.

Unscrupulous tailors are known to use enchantments to achieve flattering fits for bodies such as his. Enchantments that tend to be embarrassingly obvious and fade at inopportune times.

Unsophisticated tailors such as Madame Malkin would have just had him in a one-type-suits-all fit that would either cling to inconvenient places or be too large to hint at any sort of figure at all.

A tailor such as Draco's who weaves subtle magic into the seams themselves doesn't come without expense or connections. He still may not be able to make a Slughorn look anything except obese, but he can give Draco the illusion of the trim Malfoy figure he was supposed to have had.

And so, while Draco may no longer have the bulk of the Malfoy fortune at his disposal — his current wardrobe had taken a good portion of his illness leave pay — it seems the investment was even more necessary than he'd thought.

His shirt alone hides that his midsection is more flabby than flat, and the waistcoat on top gives it a narrow taper. His robes are long and look to be cut slimmer than they are. His trousers disguise the softness on his thighs and even manage to transform the jiggle of his small bum into a pert curve.

Draco's refastening his robes when he stills at a twist at the locked doorknob. He flashes back to the last time Potter had caught him in the toilets, sobbing and snotty — and, soon after, exsanguinating — but then he hears the "'Ello? Someone in there?" and it's a voice much coarser, and much drunker, than Potter's.

He lets out his breath.

When the man begins pounding on the toilet door, Draco considers staying in here out of spite. But Potter's likely wondering by now if he's sneaked out the back like the coward he used to be.

And, even if Draco did give into the temptation to do just that, he'd still have to face the git again all too soon. Ms Hortensia Crickerly, saving the most horrible of her announcements for last, had informed them that they're now stuck on a diet and exercise regimen together.

Weeks of mandatory Physical Rehabilitation of Aurors and Trainees, or P.R.A.T., with the very _prat_ he's gone out of his way to avoid for years.

So Draco smooths down his robes, and then his hair, and gives his reflection one last critical look. The last thing he'd needed was the Saviour of the Wizarding World witnessing his humiliation, but at least he can console himself with the knowledge that Potter is even fatter than he is.

"Is that all you're eating?"

"In case you've already forgot—" Draco takes a seat in front of the limp-looking salad that's waiting for him. "—We have just been put on a diet."

"You've read yours already?" Potter asks curiously.

"I don't need to read it to know that _that_'s not likely to be on it." Draco looks pointedly at the plates of sausages and mash and chips that Potter's already made good headway on. "In fact, I believe I've solved the mystery of how _you_'ve ended up with an Unacceptable in weight."

He had wondered. All the Aurors' active assignments had decreased after the last of the Death Eaters had been rounded up. But it was hard to imagine that Harry Potter would have mastered the aristocratic art of laziness. Seeing the portions of greasy pub food in front of him now, though, Draco recalls the way he'd used to shovel food into his face at school. Clearly his habit of eating every meal as if he's been starved has finally caught up to him.

"I thought perhaps a last meal," Potter says, a flush visible on his cheeks even in the dark pub corner.

"Right," Draco says sceptically, refraining from pointing out that Potter has already had a year's time for last meals.

"Want some chips?" he offers. "They're quite good."

"No, I do not want _chips_."

Potter nudges his plate of chips across the table anyways. "That salad looks unhealthy." 

"It's delicious." Draco takes a pointed bite of limp lettuce and forces himself to swallow it.

Potter opens his mouth as if to continue insisting, but then closes it in favour of just tilting his head and looking at him. The scrutiny gets uncomfortable after a moment. Draco stabs a half-brown radish with his fork.

"You realize you weren't failed for putting on a couple of pounds, right?" Potter says finally, because of course he has to _bring it up_. He seems to hesitate. "You do know that, don't you? That you were only not cleared for assignments because you're still hurt?"

"I'm _fine_," Draco snaps.

"Draco." Potter looks as if he's about to reach out to him, but then he clearly thinks the better of it and stops his hand halfway across the table. But that doesn't stop him from continuing, quietly, "You almost failed on Wellness. You were really — you were really hurt. You need a Mediwitch, not a diet."

Draco clenches his fists under the table. The last thing he needs is pity from _Potter_. "That's not what my mandatory diet plan says."

"But you just said you haven't even read it," Potter points out. "It might just say you need more vitamin potions." He frowns at Draco's salad. "You might need one anyway if you insist on finishing that."

Draco gives him a deeply sceptical look. "And is that all that was on your old diet, then? Vitamin potions?"

"I don't know." Potter shrugs and, before Draco can process that statement, he continues, "But Hermione said last year that having a standard for weight for Aurors doesn't even make sense. I mean, think about it. If you pass everything else, why does it matter? She reckoned Robards was just making an example of being strict after they relaxed their standards so much with the war."

"Oh, Granger reckons, does she."

Potter, missing his sarcasm, continues, "Yeah. She said last year I wouldn't have even been overweight by Muggle standards. And Muggles actually have to worry about their health if they are."

Draco is tempted to point that out as one more proof of Muggle inferiority, but he suspects Potter would take it poorly. So instead he chooses to provoke him in a less dangerous direction and looks meaningfully towards his midsection as he asks, "And so are you still not 'overweight' for a Muggle, then?"

But instead of taking offense, Potter, annoyingly, just looks a bit sheepish.

"Er, I suppose I could be now." He has the gall to turn earnest eyes onto him. "But you're definitely not, Draco. You really don't need to eat that salad."

Draco huffs and takes another bite to spite him.


	3. Chapter 3

It's two days later when Draco catches sight of the prat again.

He stares until Potter gives him a curious look and then, pretending not to still be staring, he informs him, "You're late. I had to entertain myself with what's-his-name—"

"Who's what's-his-name?"

Draco shrugs and gestures across the duelling room at where their trainer is transfiguring some strange Muggle exercise equipment.

"He's a _fan_ of yours, by the way, just warning you, and—" But Draco can't take it anymore. "Potter, are you allergic to properly fitting clothing?"

"Er." Potter tugs at his t-shirt. "These might be a bit old."

"_Might_ be?"

At least Draco doesn't need to guess at where Potter has put that two-and-a-half stone anymore. The bare hint of thickness under his Auror robes has turned out to be a proper _pot_ belly when squeezed into a t-shirt smaller than any he'd ever worn at Hogwarts — though, that, admittedly, may not be saying much.

"I haven't needed to work out in a bit," Potter says. When Draco just continues staring, incredulous, he says, "I'll go get what's-his-name, shall I?" 

And then he's walking off across the duelling room and the view is somehow even _worse_ from behind.

Jacob McGreelty, an annoying blond man who's taller than Draco and has shoulders almost as broad as Neville's, spends the first five minutes apologizing to Potter for the travesty of keeping such a noble war hero from doing his job. Which means that Potter has to spend the next ten minutes trying to convince him it's not his fault. And then, just as it's starting to look like he's working up to asking Potter for either an autograph or a date, Draco reminds him that he has two clients this morning.

Once Jacob starts showing them their exercises it gets even more annoying, though. He keeps putting Potter in salacious positions and then putting his hands on his hips to adjust him or feeling up his pot belly as he tells him to flex his non-existent abs.

The whole situation is giving Draco a lot of feelings and he doesn't like any of them.

When Jacob finally wanders off, he demands, "Why didn't you tell him to stop fondling you?"

"Fondling?" Potter repeats. "What? I think he was just correcting my form."

"He wasn't doing that to me," Draco points out.

"Well—"

"Wait," he realizes. "That means my form was perfect."

"No, your form definitely wasn't perfect," Potter says. "He just stopped trying to help you around the time you threatened to curse him with incurable boils."

"I don't think so, Potter." Draco is already feeling better. Now that he remembers, Potter's belly — almost twice as fat and quite a bit rounder than his — _had_ seemed to be getting in the way during that exercise in which Jacob had made them repeatedly sit up from a bumming position. "You're just upset I'm better at something than you are. And on my first time."

"You know, Auror Malfoy," Jacob's nasally voice interrupts as he walks back up to them. "I'm actually surprised you didn't already know these exercises. I just checked your St Mungo's records—"

"Since when do _you_ have my hospital records?" Draco demands.

"— And, just like I'd thought, most of them were a part of your rehabilitation program after you were released. Were you not doing them?"

Draco crosses his arms. "What are you implying?"

Potter turns to him with a frown, which then turns into something wider-eyed as he stares at his sleeve.

"What?" Draco twists around to see what's wrong with it.

"Is your tracksuit _Muggle_?"

"Of course not," Draco huffs.

He had firecalled his tailor immediately upon realizing that they were to attend an exercise session today, but Signor Giuseppe had snuffed out the firecall when Draco hadn't even been halfway through detailing his requirements for a jogging suit.

It's not any of Potter's business if Draco had been forced to venture slightly outside of Diagon Alley when no wizarding shop had exercise clothing that didn't make him look either frumpy or fat.

"It's Adidas, Draco."

"Who's Adidas?"

"It's a — never mind, it doesn't matter. It looks nice on you, though." Potter's amused smile turns into a slight flush and he looks away.

The only thing more annoying than Jacob McGreelty is the way Potter's too-small t-shirt keeps riding up. No, the only thing more annoying than Jacob is the way Potter's joggers stretch over his bum. And the only thing more annoying than _that_ is the way his too-small t-shirt keeps riding up over the swell of his pot belly.

Potter's tugging his t-shirt down to meet the strained waist of his joggers for the twenty-third time that morning when he catches Draco staring.

"Er," he says. "Maybe I should've just engorgioed it."

Draco raises his eyebrows and looks pointedly at his t-shirt, which is _definitely_ bearing a Muggle logo, by the way, Potter had had no room to criticize. "What? And ruin such nice fabric?"

And then the third-most annoying thing in this room comes back to interrupt them.

As they leave, Potter steals Draco's P.R.A.T. letter and, when Draco protests, informs him that if he wants it back, he'll have to meet him in the Atrium after work tomorrow.

"Is this some attempt at blackmail?" Draco crosses his arms. "Do I have to report Harry Potter for investigation?"

Potter just laughs and tells him, "Wear your Adidas."

That night finds Draco crouched in the furthest corner of his London attic, tossing contents of an old box aside.

If anyone else had been there to see him triumphantly finding a six-year-old Witch Weekly buried at the bottom of it, he would have informed them that, no, it doesn't mean anything that he still has it. He'd simply wisely anticipated needing it for reference one day.

He brightens up his lumos.

_HARRY POTTER BARES ALL_.

Potter's messy hair is waving in the same wind that appears to be rustling the trees, there's a streak of dirt over his cheekbones, and what can be seen of his trousers are in tatters.

He's also shirtless, which is, rather the whole point of the cover.

He's fit and thin and the light from the setting sun highlights every line of muscle on his body. His chest, his arms, his shoulders. The flex of abdominals as he moves. The lean V of muscle and the small hint of dark hair on his belly disappearing under tattered trousers.

Potter's looking to the side at something out of the picture, and occasionally turns to the front but only to look at something past Draco, never directly at him.

That fact had always seemed rather realistic.

Draco had used to tell himself that the way his face got hot and his heart had used to pound every time he pulled out the magazine — which was, admittedly, rather a lot of times — was from anger at the unfairness of it all. 

It hadn't been enough for Potter to have the Wizarding World perpetually at his fingertips. No, he'd had to lord an enviable physique over everyone, too. Lord over Draco that a stubborn roll of fat hadn't appeared under _Potter's_ belly button after the war.

But that was before Draco had made the policy of not lying to himself.

Before he'd had to consider that it might not simply be anger that had him hard and wanking every time he pulled the magazine out of his bedside drawer.

And that realization had been followed by the even more uncomfortable one that the most frequent object of his fantasies was a schoolmate who had thought so little of him that Draco had to wank to a photo that wouldn't even look him in the eye for it to be realistic.

He'd vowed never be that utterly _pathetic_ again.

To have nothing whatsoever to do with Potter ever again.

Though the events of this week are admittedly confusing the situation a bit.

Draco looks at the cover photo again. He hadn't realized before just how exhausted Potter looks. His shoulders are a nice breadth, sure, a tad broader than they'd been at school, but they're slumped down. And his eyes don't need to be meeting Draco's to see the dismay in them. This photo hadn't been taken with his permission, Draco had known that, of course. But he'd never considered what might have led to Potter being shirtless and covered in dirt and bruises — let alone whatever it was that the camera hadn't captured that had put that look on his face.

He's enviably fit, of course. But he's also slight and vulnerable and it's getting hard to remember how he'd looked at this photo and seen a boy who had it all.

Perhaps it's because, after years of avoiding any mention of the Boy Who Lived, he has something to compare that picture to.

And not just the obvious, that today's Potter is too fat to properly squeeze into a t-shirt that would've easily fit this nineteen-year-old Witch Weekly version. 

But that the green eyes behind those same glasses hadn't been filled with exhausted dismay this week. Instead there'd been a good-natured sheepishness when what Jacob called 'push-ups' hadn't used to be so hard, a teasing sparkle at Draco's Muggle clothes, an odd concern whenever Draco winced at the remnants of Hecate's Curse acting up.

He'd actually looked directly at Draco, too. Rather often, now that Draco thinks about it.

And he'd laughed. That is perhaps the most confusing part of all, because he'd laughed and it hadn't been at Draco. Well, perhaps it had been _at_ him, but it hadn't been _mean_.

And now, no matter that it's against his will, Draco's going to break his vow for the third time this week and see Potter tomorrow.

And Potter wants him in exercise clothes, which means that Potter will be in them too, which means that Draco's going to have to see him flushed and panting and with tracksuit bottoms stretched over a big arse...

If Draco soon finds himself stuffing his hand down his trousers to the memory of Potter in various of the more compromising positions from this morning, it's not because this week's Potter is at all attractive.

He was just due for a wank, anyways.


	4. Chapter 4

The next day, with barely any warning, Potter side-alongs him to a remote forest. And then, instead of murdering him out of sight of witnesses, he does something even worse: makes him run.

And then do calisthenics by a lake.

And then stretches. All the stretches Draco's been assigned. Even the boring ones.

And then proceeds to repeat the same torture every other day. When he brings Draco a salve for his curse scar and offers to massage it in for him, Draco snaches it away with the sinking suspicion he's let this go too far.

If Draco had known that Potter would use it against him like this, he would have warded the blasted P.R.A.T. letter on Level 9.

Two weeks later, after their mandatory weekly meeting with McGreelty, Potter abducts him to another pub. 

Draco would have protested more than he does, but the pub has more firewhiskey and fewer calisthenics than the forest.

Potter is sat across from him with a generous plate and an unshaven jaw. Apparently a simple shaving charm is too much for the Hero of the Wizarding World to manage on a regular basis, but the scruff covers up some of his jaw's usual stubborn righteousness, so Draco supposes there are worse thing he could be forced to look at.

His hair is its usual mess. There's rather a lot of it, really, as it's almost down to his shoulders. Draco wonders if he were to run his hands through it if he'd ever get them back or if they would get snagged irretrievably in the knots.

And then, at the horrorific realization that he's thinking about running his _hands_ through Potter's _hair_, he slams up mental walls.

He recalls too late how shit Potter has always been at Legilimancy and so all he's done is drawn attention to the fact that there was something to draw attention to and earn himself a curious look.

To deflect, Draco gestures at Potter's half-eaten meal. "You know, that's not likely to make your push-ups any easier, Potter."

Potter looks down at his fish and chips — "extra fish and extra chips, please" — and his cheeks pinken slightly. "Haven't you heard of a cheat meal?"

"A cheat meal."

He nods.

Draco snorts. "Have you never met a rule you could resist breaking, then?"

A smile tugs at the corner of Potter's mouth. "Hey, I'm doing the exercises, aren't I?"

"Only because you like watching me suffer."

"Maybe." And then Potter takes in Draco's dinner. "You don't have to keep eating salads, either, you know. Jacob said you've already lost three pounds."

Draco says stiffly, "Three whole pounds, is it."

"That means you're only one from meeting your weight standard," Potter points out.

"Ah, yes. One whole pound away from no longer being too fat to be an auror," Draco scoffs. "What a massive accomplishment that is."

Perhaps it's not the most sensitive comment to make. Not when McGreelty, upon casting Potter's assessment spell tonight, had announced with earnest confusion that Potter had managed to add another two pounds to the three he'd _gained_ the week before.

But it's not as if Potter couldn't just stop with the pub food.

In fact, Draco rather wishes he would hurry up and lose the weight.

Potter did end up engorgioing his workout clothes to fit his rounder figure — which has led to rather humorous outcomes in his clothing's proportions, with the length of the tracksuit bottoms dragging past his trainers and comically thick ties at his waist — but they still cling more distractingly than is good for Draco's focus.

If he'd just show up to their next session with a small and un-bouncy version of his bum, Draco would happily obliviate himself of the knowledge of what he currently looks like from behind when he runs.

Though, of course, if Potter just lost the weight he wouldn't show up to do these stupid P.R.A.T. exercises with Draco anymore at all. Which would be—

A good thing.

Of course it would be a good thing.

Then he could finally resume never seeing Potter again.

But Potter, instead of doing something normal like take offense at Draco's comment, is instead looking at him with an annoyingly large amount of sincerity in his too-big green eyes.

"Draco," Potter starts. Draco narrows his eyes at him in suspicion. "Robards' rules are stupid." He bites his lip. "I wouldn't have ever been able to tell you'd needed to lose weight, you know. You look really—"

"I look like I have a good tailor, Potter," Draco interrupts before Potter can keep going on about it.

Potter looks like he's about to argue, but then he just sighs instead and digs back into his dinner. "Maybe you should give me the address of your tailor, then. My robes are getting a bit uncomfortable."

"Or you could just stop having cheat meals."

Potter pauses with a piece of fish halfway to his mouth, and glances down at his plate forlornly. "I think I'd prefer the tailor's."

"Well, you'll have to find a different one," Draco informs him. "Mine is no longer taking my firecalls." At Potter's curious look, he sniffs. "He took an entirely irrational amount of offense when I attempted to commission him for a jogging suit."

Potter chokes out a laugh.

Draco attempts not to enjoy the sound of it.

Draco gulps down some summoned water, passes the glass back to Potter and then collapses on his back onto the grassy Quidditch pitch to resume the business of catching his breath.

He'd been cornered at his desk yesterday by one Harry Potter and his furiously flapping snitch, and had been instructed to meet him the next morning. And to bring his broom.

It's a hot Saturday in wherever-the-hell out of London Potter had side-alonged him to. They'd started out in their traveling robes — Draco had briefly contemplated whether the thought of them wearing their old scarlet and green Hogwarts house robes would result in more nostalgia or regret, but it wasn't as though either of them were in any shape to fit into them, anyways — as it grew hotter, though, they'd shed layers of their clothes until they were both in t-shirts and tracksuit bottoms.

He watches Potter spread out on his back next to him.

For all that Potter has complained about his Auror robes getting snug, Draco has had to squint to note any strain at the buttons. But lying like this, his middle generously rounding up with every breath, he looks rather further than two stone from the lean abdominals on that Witch Weekly cover.

Especially since Draco can vouch for a good portion of that two stone having gone to his bottom instead.

Though, he supposes, it'd actually been two plus a half at the beginning. Which means that Potter's ability to put on more weight whilst being on a new diet puts him quite a bit closer to three than two.

Three stone sound like quite a lot, and looks it, too, right now. But Draco still has to admit that Potter isn't actually _that_ fat. He's not the size of a house, not even a small cottage. And he's beginning to suspect that he may not even be all that out of shape, either. Which is an aggravating thought on its own.

Potter might have been the one to call a stop before either of them had caught the snitch, but when they'd landed he'd been as suspiciously _not_ out of breath as he is when they run together. Draco has begun to suspect that he'd noticed Draco struggling to breathe — and, with the way Potter's proving himself to be annoyingly observant lately, perhaps even noticed that every turn on the broomstick had been getting incrementally more tortuous — and had only ended it because Draco had been too proud to be the first to concede the game.

Draco detests the thought of Potter's pity as much as he detests anything in this world.

But he still must admit it's not entirely unpleasant to have someone — even if it is Harry Potter — pay him so much attention.

Not that he hasn't had attention. Just nothing quite like Potter's.

Before he'd regained consciousness in St Mungo's those months back, his father had ensured a headline in the Prophet about him laying down his life for the side of the light. That had been followed by a number of articles in various publications with updates on Draco's recovery, emphasizing his mother's loving doting.

It hadn't been a lie. She'd barely left him alone for a minute. But no use wasting a chance at redeeming the Malfoy name, after all.

Once Draco had finally been strong enough to escape the Manor, he'd begun to be subjected to Neville's guilty visits on a regular schedule. Each time, he'd apologize for the holiday he'd taken to visit his Gran that had left Draco partnered with an exceedingly incompetent Junior Auror. And then would gift him with finicky plants that Draco would subsequently be forced to keep alive.

He'd even got a letter from Zabini for the first time in seven years, but he'd fed it to Neville's baby Snargaluff without reading it.

If Potter had been around then with anything approaching the frequency he is now, Draco suspects he would have found himself dragged from his days of self-pity and too many of Honeyduke's Finest and instead coerced into doing the exercises and time-consuming applications of salves the healers had prescribed.

Of course, there's no reason Potter would have ever been around then. There's hardly much more of a reason for Potter to be around so often now.

The man in question interrupts his thoughts with a pat of his round belly and a sheepish, "I suppose neither of us are in Quidditch shape anymore." 

Draco looks at him sharply. "Speak for yourself."

But Potter just laughs. "You didn't catch snitch either, Draco."

"When have I ever when you're in the game?"

He gives him a long look. "Is your leg all right?"

It's Draco's hip that's giving him trouble today, thank you very much. But he doesn't bother correcting him, just attempts to forestall the lecture by promising, "I'll put the salve on it when I get home."

"I brought some here for you. You should stretch, too." Potter starts to get up.

Draco sighs.

He'd been supposed to get on the broom as part of his rehabilitation, he recalls now. Core work, the mediwitch had told him. 

Naturally, though, he'd taken advice from anyone at St Mungo's with a large dose of resentment. He doesn't see how they could have expected him to take any of their recommendations after they'd just informed him that there was little more they could do for him. The curse would just take time to work the rest of its way out, apparently. Time that could be years, if not the rest of his life.

Menial Muggle-style exercises were a pathetic substitute for the actual healing they'd been supposed to provide.

But, as Draco lays a hand on his middle, letting it sink into the squish of his untoned stomach, he wonders if 'core work' would not have been a terrible idea. Even if only for aesthetic purposes.

"Hey, I caught the snitch!"

Draco looks up to find Potter grinning and triumphantly showing off how the snitch had apparently flown right into his hand.

"Of course you did, Potter." He flops back onto the ground. "Of course you did."


	5. Chapter 5

Draco doesn't see Potter for the next five days.

He's lost interest in his latest save-the-Death-Eater project, obviously.

Though, thanks to his not-lying-to-himself policy, Draco has to admit that his hiding in the Department of Mysteries and casting discreet disillusionment charms on the rare occasions he's made to venture back onto the Second Level may have something to do with it as well.

He's cornered on a Thursday morning whilst investigating cursed orbs in the Hall of Prophecy.

"Potter," he says coolly. "Fancy meeting you all the way up here."

Potter raises an eyebrow.

"You know," Draco muses. "I actually thought you were banned from Level Nine after the Reductor incident."

"I wasn't banned so much as strongly discouraged." Potter crosses his arms.

"Right."

"... On threat of evisceration."

"By the Lethifold?"

"I believe it was the mutated Inferi, actually," Potter says.

Draco hums.

Draco's one of the few Aurors the Unspeakables will condescend to work with. A reputation for practicality over principle does come in handy sometimes. They know he's not going to tattle to the heads of Magical Law Enforcement about experiments that may be, technically, not entirely inside the law.

Potter may have a reputation for rule-breaking, but it's no secret he's also on the fast track to becoming Head Auror.

Plus, there was the Reductor incident.

"You better have been using the salve," Potter adds.

"I have."

"And doing your stretches."

Draco says huffily, "I'm offended you even have to ask."

"Yeah, I thought not." Potter taps his fingers on the side of his arm. "I still have your broom, by the way. You left it."

"Potter—"

"You're meeting me at the forest after work."

"Are you bringing the broom?"

Potter seems to think about it. "No."

Draco sighs. "All right."

He'd always known he'd end up on the wrong side of Potter's temper again sooner or later. He has to admit, the experience is rather less unpleasant without contempt thrown in with the anger.

"Oh, and Draco?" Potter turns back from the doorway with a whirl of his Auror cape. "Do me a favour?"

"What?"

"Give me a little more fucking credit than that next time?"

Draco slumps back down in his chair. "Fine."

The thing is, Draco always keeps his arms covered. _Always_. Even when it's just him and his house-elf. Even when he's not the only person in the room who needs to. And, yes, that includes when he's around a certain forebear.

He hadn't even owned anything short-sleeved until the bloody Muggle tracksuit and the bloody t-shirt that had come with it.

Then it had been hot that morning and they'd stripped out of their layers. And when the stadium's squib groundskeeper had come upon them to give the Boy Who Lived a fervent, babbling hug, he'd caught sight of Draco and flinched back in horror.

Draco can still see the old man's shaky finger pointed at him. _But how can you associate with one of — one of them?_

He can see Potter's lips part, eyes flicking to Draco's left arm...

And then a crack and his own front parlour.

As his father says, one must always keep decorum.

As Draco reminds himself, one must always remember _why_ one needs to keep decorum.

And yet he'd managed forget — for _hours_ — that there had been anything at all to be kept covered.

Potter's anger doesn't last as long as it had used to. As promised, he still doesn't return Draco's broomstick, but their run is companionable and he only makes Draco do a normal amount of calisthenics afterwards.

He even offers him a new experimental salve from an unnamed potions supplier.

"You can trust it, though," Potter assures him.

"I know." Draco pockets the amber bottle.

"I wish I could tell you who it was, but they don't want their work for the Ministry known."

Draco rolls his eyes. It's Pansy Parkinson, obviously. He doesn't even need to look for the pansies stamped on the bottom of the bottle to know they're there.

Potter may like the idea of it, but Golden Boys of the Wizarding World don't get to have mysterious semi-legal potions suppliers. They get gossip columnists with a lucrative side trade in boutique salves.

But Potter's being very earnest about the whole thing — and had decided to only be angry with him for seven hours instead of seven years this time — so Draco awards him with a grudging, "Thank you, Potter."

He regrets it as soon as the prat's eyes widen in surprise.

Draco eats more salads and loses another pound. Potter eats too much pub food and gains two more.

Potter keeps making him do every exercise in his P.R.A.T. instructions to the letter. Draco starts minding that more on principle and less on pain, as Pansy's salves work better than he cares to admit.

McGreelty suggests they begin using the Duelling Room for duelling. Recreate their fitness standards in something like field conditions. Draco knows it's only his own benefit he's talking about, but Potter continues to be amenable to extra exercise if it's for the purpose of torturing Draco.

They're far from evenly matched — wouldn't have been even before Hecate's Curse — but, after Draco throws a fit, Potter doesn't hold back anymore.

It becomes almost bearable.

More days pass. Spending so much of his spare time with Potter becomes almost bearable, too.

And so Draco is entirely unprepared for the sight he's assaulted with after their duelling practice.

Really, he would have thought someone with sneakily-obtained half-nude magazine covers would have learned a bit more caution. But he's clearly forgot the words 'Harry Potter' and 'caution' don't belong in the same sentence when, with a blissful innocence that he will never get back, he enters the completely unwarded Ministry changing room to find a freshly-showered Potter bending over to pull up his underpants.

Draco must make some sound — he's fairly certain he doesn't want to know what sort of sound — because Potter whirls around, snatching for his towel with one hand and wand with the other.

"Oh." He relaxes. "It's you."

Draco opens and closes his mouth. Gapes. Then settles on throwing his arms in the air and yelling, "Who were you _expecting_?!"

Draco casts a warming charm on the shower, then briefly considers a slickening charm for the tile floor.

A light concussion would give him some short-term memory loss, surely. But then he thinks the better of it. Potter would probably hear him fall and come after him and Draco is not one-hundred percent certain he's fully dressed yet.

So he steps under the water and refuses to think about what he's just seen.

Potter is rather more toned than expected, thinks a part of Draco's brain that has not yet received the directive.

He's not much broader or bulkier than he was as a teenager, even with an extra three stone. But there appears to be a pleasant amount of muscle under the softness of weight he's put on.

His thighs certainly look rather strong.

Draco reminds himself again that he's not thinking about this. Also reminds his hands to stick to shampooing and not to drift downwards whilst he's not thinking about this.

He wonders if the three stone has hurt Potter's prospects at all. It's not an easily avoided amount of weight. Not like the bit of pudge over Draco's midsection that his late-night pulls over the years had always politely ignored.

Draco can admit, if only in the privacy of the showers, that he had possibly thought about Potter a time or hundred before that Witch Weekly had come out. Quite a long time before, really. But after seeing that cover, he had developed a rather vivid fantasy — one that he'd refined to intricate detail over the following months — of coming over Potter's stomach.

He'd thought the whole fantasy so unique, so deviant as to be practically kinky.

It embarrasses him for his younger self.

He's had more than one man in his bed by now with a physique like nineteen year old Potter's. And, while he's sure the experience of licking one's cum off Potter's abs would hardly have been unpleasant — which is another thing Draco is only admitting in the privacy of this shower — the whole fantasy seems so utterly _common_. So unforgivably uncreative.

Catching a Potter in peak fighting shape in the nude couldn't possibly be as aggravating as what Draco's just been subjected to.

The round swell of Potter's bum is somehow even rounder when it's naked. It's torturous not to know how it feels to get his hands on it, to dig his fingers into it. Dig his teeth into it.

Draco's never considered it before, but he can admit there might be some purely _theoretical_ appeal in a couple of extra stone.

At minimum, the fantasy of licking their mingled cum off a soft and solid pot belly seems far less _mundane_ than anything his teenaged self had come up with.

He wonders suddenly if Potter has a boyfriend. With how studiously Draco's avoided gossip about The Boy Who Lived, he could have even got married without Draco having heard.

Though all the time he's spent harassing Draco these past weeks makes that less likely. Or at least would make Potter a rather neglectful partner.

But that doesn't mean the prat's bed has to have been empty. He could have been sleeping with other men this whole time.

Draco fiercely shuts down that thought. He's spent far too many years being jealous of Potter, over Potter, wanking off to Potter...

Though there's nothing to be done for that last part right now, seeing as he's about to come in the Ministry showers, just thinking about getting his hands on his arse.


	6. Chapter 6

Potter decides to no longer restrict torturing Draco to outside of work hours and begins meeting him at his desk for lunches. Draco sticks his nose in the air and pretends isn't tempted when Potter offers to share his chips and pasties to replace his meagre sandwiches and salads.

He pointedly doesn't think about why he always finds himself at his desk in the auror offices whenever it's the time Potter might come by.

Another week passes. Draco doesn't lose any weight but he's still a proud Disappointing below his Weight Standard and that second little roll at his waist isn't showing up as often.

Potter's another pound above his Standard.

At the pub, Potter orders a large serving of shepherd's pie with chips on the side. Draco orders a salad.

"You know, if you think about it," Potter muses as they claim a table. "Is it even technically cheating when I haven't actually read my diet plan? Shepherd's pie could be on it."

Draco raises his eyebrows. "You haven't read your diet plan? Potter, I am shocked."

Potter's lips twitch like he's trying to hold back a smile.

"Truly shocked," Draco continues. "But I believe it's safe to assume that nothing you eat is on it."

"I just didn't think Robards would hold out so long." Potter picks up a chip.

Draco hadn't either. He'd expected him to be back in the field with some contrived exemption weeks ago. He supposes it's only because it's been a slow couple of months.

"So what's it like being treated just like the rest of us commoners?"

"Terrible," Potter groans. He reaches for his forehead, tugging at his fringe. "Perhaps it's time for a haircut. Can you see my scar from there?"

Draco laughs out loud.

He wouldn't have ever imagined he'd live long enough to see the Boy Who Lived poking fun at himself.

But then he'd never thought he'd be caught dead having weekly pub nights with the prat, either.

"It's not like I don't know I _should_ look at my diet," Potter concedes. "I'd prefer my robes hadn't got so hard to button."

Draco hums and takes a drink of his lager. Potter has been complaining about his auror robes being uncomfortable for a while, and the thick transfigured dragonhide _is_ finally showing some strain in having to restrain the pot belly underneath.

"And I'd like to get back on active assignments. Though obviously not until—" He cuts himself off, glancing down at his plate. "It's just. Have you ever been hungry, Draco? Like, really hungry? Not just a couple of skipped meals, I mean."

Draco thinks it's rather obvious that he hasn't.

"Every time I think about being on a diet, I can't help think about it, you know? Being hungry. It always makes me want to eat more so I won't be." Potter shrugs. "Or maybe just to prove that there _is_ more to eat. That no one will take it away. I know it's stupid—"

Potter's been making himself even harder to comprehend than usual. But Draco'd heard enough rumours back at school that he's suddenly able to fill in his half-finished sentences. Enough of them at least to realize he very much doesn't want to be able to finish any more of them.

So he interrupts, "Fuck it."

Potter blinks. "Fuck what? The diet?"

"Yeah, fuck the bloody diet." Draco gives a frustrated gesture. "Banish it, burn it, whatever. Feed it to my Snargaluff—"

"You have a Snargaluff?"

He glares at him. "You're the bloody Boy Who Lived. Just get a bit more exercise or something."

"Oh." Potter glances down at his midsection. "Do you really think more exercise will be enough?"

"Probably not." Draco considers it. "At least you'll get to keep your arse."

Potter's eyes widen behind his glasses, lips parting. "Are you saying you think I have a nice arse?"

"Surely you've got a mirror, Potter," Draco snaps, suddenly annoyed at himself for bringing it up. "Don't fish for compliments."

"I'm gay," Potter blurts out.

Draco raises his eyebrows. "Congratulations, Potter, aren't we all?"

There's a pause and then Potter says, sounding oddly flustered, "You mean, you — you're...?"

Draco rolls his eyes. It should hardly be a surprise. "Not all of us get headlines in the Prophet, you know."

He still thinks fondly about the Daily Prophet Morning Edition, 7 April 2000, that had won him a longstanding bet with Bulstrode. To be fair, everyone else he'd proposed it to had laughed at the terms, and even she had refused to go above five galleons. But it was the principle of the thing.

"Right." Potter bites his lip. Then, without saying anything else, he tucks back into his dinner.

They're in the alley behind the pub and Draco's reaching for his wand to apparate home, when Potter stops abruptly to face him.

"Did you mean it?"

"That I'd feed your diet plan to my Snargaluff?" Draco asks. "Only if you don't tell Neville. Apparently, paper isn't a healthy meal. Just don't ask me why he imagines I would want a _healthy_ Snargaluff in my kitchen—"

"No," Potter interrupts. "That you're... you know."

Draco raises his eyebrows. "That I'm gay? You can say the word, you know."

"I know I can say it," Potter says irritatedly.

"What, then? Do you require sworn testimonies? Pensieve evidence?"

"Draco."

"I hadn't actually imagined there was anyone left in the wizarding world it would come as a shock to."

"It's not a _shock_, it's just—" Potter huffs and looks away. When he finally turns back, it's with a determined set to his unshaven jaw. "I brought you flowers."

Draco looks him up and down for where he might have stashed a reducioed bouquet in his robes. And then realizes that can't possibly be what Potter means. The whole night has been throwing him off, but he's hardly going to bring flowers for him to their weekly pub night. It's a time for mutual commiseration for having got fat. It's not a _date_.

"It was when you were in hospital," Potter continues. "You were really hurt. Everyone thought you might not— I mean, you almost didn't." He swallows. "I came every day."

"No, you didn't." Draco would certainly have remembered that.

"Well, not when you were awake," Potter hedges. Draco opens his mouth to comment on the appropriateness of _that_ but Potter quickly continues, "I knew you wouldn't have wanted to see me. You still hated me back then. You've spent five years going to a lot of trouble to avoid being assigned with me."

"I have not," Draco lies.

"Erm—"

"Also, I do hate you still," he corrects him. "No need for past tense."

"Of course." Potter gives him a wry smile in the alley light. "But that's really not mutual, Draco."

And then Potter kisses him.

The kiss is light, barely a brush of lips, and ends before Draco can decide whether to kiss him back or shove him away.

He gives Draco a searching look, then quirks a small smile. "Hi."

"Hi?!" Draco repeats. Potter's lips were softer than he'd thought, and he has no idea what he's supposed to do with that knowledge.

When Potter leans in and kisses him again, Draco is still utterly lost, but when he licks for a taste, Potter doesn't hesitate to take control. He pulls him in closer to deepen the kiss and his mouth is warm and surges with the confident magic of the boy behind it.

Draco feels like a third year who's having his first kiss. Only his first kiss hadn't been with the bloody Boy Who Lived. The Saviour of the Wizarding World. The Most Powerful Wizard of Their Age.

Hadn't made him question a voluntary commitment to the Janus Thickey ward.

What should he do with his hands? What does he normally do with them when he's being kissed? Is it acceptable to put them on one's partner's bum or must he wait for the third kiss for that?

He's just barely decided on settling them on the sides of Potter's broad waist and then it's over.

"Goodnight, Draco," Potter says with a soft smile.

Draco has to shake himself out of his shock to realize that Potter's _leaving_. "Where are you _going_?"

"Erm." Potter looks suddenly unsure. "Home?"

"So, what?" Draco says snippily. "You bring me flowers and you kiss me and then you just _walk away_?"

Potter's brow furrows. "You want me to stay?"

"Well, you're not supposed to leave me _behind_." Draco crosses his arms, petulant.

"Are you saying you want—"

"Of course I bloody _want_."

"All right." Potter laughs. He laughs and his eyes sparkle behind his stupid glasses and he looks so bloody happy. And he looks at Draco as if _he's_ the one making him that way. He reaches for Draco's arms, tugging them from where they're crossed over his chest. He kisses him again. "All right, Draco. Please come home with me."


	7. Chapter 7

Potter leads Draco by the hand through a dark and cavernous entranceway, kisses him as he tugs him up a grand and dusty staircase. Past gaslamps that flare and then extinguish as they pass, past portraits making snippy comments, into a bedroom with a wide canopied bed.

Potter pushes off his robes and Draco dims the lamps to a bare flicker of light over snake brocade wallpaper before letting him toss his wand away and go to work on his shirt and waistcoat.

Potter's mouth is hot and his hands soft as he runs them down Draco's bare shoulders, bare sides, bare back. He's murmuring things like, "Can't believe you're letting me" and "Thought I'd have to woo you" against his lips.

"You still have to woo me," Draco informs him. He pushes him back against the wall, pushes at his Auror robes. They're so stiff and armored he can barely feel the bloody prat underneath them. "Get these off, Potter."

"Okay." Potter smiles and tugs closer, kissing him again as a combination of magic and Draco's impatient hands have his cape, his robes, his shirt and trousers falling discarded to the floor.

Draco's breathless with kisses but doesn't mind. Potter's fucking brilliant at kissing.

With the thick dragonhide no longer holding it back, his belly brushes against Draco's stomach. Draco reaches for his waist. He's not all pot belly here. There's a thick softness at his sides that Draco hadn't known about. There's enough to squeeze, and so he does, pulling Potter in closer, making him groan out his name.

"Draco, fuck. You're so—"

Potter unbuttons his trousers and Draco sucks in his stomach when Potter's knuckles brush against it. 

Potter strips them off him as he pushes him back onto the wide, canopied bed. Draco barely registers that the duvet is softer, bed plusher than would seem to belong in this stuffy house because Potter is crawling over him, kissing him again. And he's naked and there's soft over his lean arms and there's plush to squeeze at his sides.

Draco's attention moves downwards.

For how thoroughly he's fantasized about getting his hands on Potter's bum, it should be a disappointment. But it's somehow both more muscled and more plump than he'd imagined. And he'd thought it would fit in his hands but it doesn't. And, fuck, he doesn't know why that's so hot but he was already so hard and he's getting desperately harder.

He digs his fingers into his bum. Potter's belly pushes into his stomach, too round and stubborn for Draco to pull him as close as he'd like. But when he angles a thigh in between Potter's, he can finally feel Potter's cock, as hard as his own. Potter thrusts against him, gasping against his lips. 

"Draco," he's saying as he kisses down his neck, voice thick with all the same disbelief Draco is feeling.

And then Potter's mouthing at his nipples, and Draco's burying his hands in his hair, arching into him, cock pushing into the curve of his belly.

But then Potter reaches for his hip, the side with the gnarled and disfigured flesh, and Draco stiffens, flinching away.

"Sorry, sorry."

Potter pulls back, sitting up, looking him over. But he doesn't have his glasses on and Draco had dimmed the gaslamps low enough that it's too dark, in any case, to make out the sickly green and purple slithering under the surface of his scarred flesh.

"Does that hurt?"

He can only make out the outline of Potter, too, in the darkness. But he can see the way he reaches out as if to touch again, but then hesitates.

Draco shakes his head. A touch like that might've burned a few weeks ago, would've been excruciating back when he'd still needed numbing charms just to get himself dressed. Now the touch just leaves enough of a slithering _different_ and _wrong_ to remind him how marred his body is.

Potter stares at him for a moment in the darkness and then says, "Okay."

He shifts back up Draco's body, propping himself up over him again to kiss him. It's an apologetic kiss at first, but Draco's still hard, and so is Potter, and it quickly turns hungry again. Draco's arching against him, shifting, going mad with every brush of Potter's belly over his cock. It's both too much and not enough. He's overstimulated and frustrated at the same time.

He digs his fingers into Potter's back. "_Potter_—"

"What do you want?" Potter asks.

Draco shakes his head. His heart is pounding with the thought of all the fantasies he might live out. But, fuck, he's never so overwhelmed in his fantasies. Potter's barely even touched him and he's never cracked open like this, vulnerable, exposed, losing all the threads of his control.

"Potter, I'm so—"

"Me too," Potter breathes out. "Merlin, me too."

"I'm not going to last," Draco blurts out. "Whatever we do. I'm not going to last, I'm so bloody close—"

"Okay," Potter says easily, as if he doesn't care that Draco's got the control of a teenager. He strokes a hand down Draco's side. "Tell me what you need."

"Potter—"

Potter ducks down and gives him a soothing kiss. "Tell me. I want to make you feel good."

Draco nods, letting Potter's kisses bring him a bit further back from the overwrought edge.

"I want your finger," he decides.

Potter sits up, straddling his thighs in the darkness. "My finger?"

Draco searches for Potter's right hand and lifts it up in front of him, finding the finger he wants.

"This one."

Potter laughs. "That's very specific."

"That a problem?"

"Never." There's a smile in his voice and he's already scooting back, repositioning Draco, giving his thighs a soft squeeze.

And then his finger's finding his entrance, stroking lightly around it. Draco squirms into the touch and Potter stills him with a hand on his scarred hip and a "Shhh."

His finger is suddenly slick as he circles it around his entrance. Draco would complain about him showing off non-verbal, apparently wandless, lubrication spells in bed, if it wasn't such a nice one. His finger's warm and slick as he pushes it inside.

And then Draco's groaning out Potter's name and "right there" and "yes, there" and "more", even though Potter doesn't need the direction. He knows just what to do, where to rub, how to tease. And Draco chose well. His finger fits so nicely, crooks just right.

And the angle gets even better when Potter ducks down to kiss his stomach. Draco only manages to spare a moment for regret that Potter couldn't have expected so much squish, before he's too lost in the sensations for self-consciousness. His whole world is the perfect thrust of Potter's finger, the brush of lips under his belly button, the strain of his barely touched cock — 

And then the heat and slick swallowing him down, the throat for him to thrust into and the finger still thrusting into him.

He might black out or it might be the darkness of the room and he might be yelling out things he'll regret in the morning or he might just be yelling out Potter's name.

He was right about not lasting but it doesn't matter because he's getting kisses now and Potter's mouth tastes even better when it tastes like himself.

Draco reaches under the curve of Potter's belly to find his cock thick and hard and leaking enough that Draco doesn't need a fancy nonverbal lubrication charm.

Potter covers his hand with his own, making him grip him tighter, faster. And Draco might be too broken apart to be coordinated but he's not too far gone to miss that Potter's cock is bloody perfect.

Because of course it is.

Potter gets everything. All the awards and all the house points and all the best headlines and so much magic Draco can feel the swell of power in every touch.

And he's brilliant in bed and fucking fit even when he's fat and he always catches the bloody snitch. Every. Single. Time.

Naturally, he has a perfect prick.

Draco wants it inside of him. Would insist on it now if he wasn't still so broken apart and Potter wasn't about to come over both their hands. 

He'll settle for later.

There fucking _better_ be a later.


	8. Chapter 8

Potter barely lets Draco out of the bed long enough for a cleaning charm and a change of clothes before he hauls him back under the covers. He wraps his arms so tight around him that Draco has to wonder if he's afraid he'll abscond with his stolen t-shirt and pyjama bottoms in the middle of the night.

Draco awakes to a not quite whispered, "Are you awake?"

He cracks an eye open to note only the slightest hint of dawn light coming in through the curtains. 

"No," he informs Potter.

"Okay."

Draco barely manages to stop himself in time from asking if he's still dreaming. If he has to have woken up next to Harry Bloody Potter, he's going to act cool about it. Even if Harry Bloody Potter is hardly being subtle himself, judging by the hard cock that he seems to be trying, and failing, not to rub against Draco's arse.

Though there are worse things to wake up to, Draco supposes. At minimum, it does seem to imply that there might be more on offer this morning.

He could do without Potter's hand rucked up under his t-shirt, however. Or at least the way it's pushing into the squishier parts of his stomach as Potter holds him close.

Apparently the price for sex with Harry Bloody Potter is not just being imprisoned in a cuddle all night long, or being woken up at an impolite hour, but also the end of carefully tailored robes being able to trick Potter into thinking Draco doesn't need to lose weight.

At least he doesn't have any room to complain about Draco's physique. Not with the belly pushing into his back right now, as insistent as the man himself in making itself known. Even if the weight around Draco's midsection hasn't settled into the same appealing swell, there's at least less of it to get in the way.

Draco pushes Potter's hand off his stomach and then reaches down to adjust himself in his borrowed pyjama bottoms.

Potter seems content enough to curl his hand over his hipbone instead.

"Potter?" Draco says.

"Hmm?"

"I might be a little bit awake."

He feels a chuckle against the back of his neck.

Draco wriggles his bum back against him, already getting impatient. "Well? Aren't you going to fuck me, then?"

Potter hums and reaches around, palming where Draco's cock is tenting the pyjama bottoms. "That's what you want?"

"It only seems convenient," Draco explains.

Potter kisses the side of his neck. "Call me Harry or I won't."

Draco huffs and reaches back to poke him in his soft side. "You will anyways."

"Yeah, probably," Potter admits, toying with the waist of Draco's pyjama bottoms.

Draco rolls his eyes and takes his pyjamas out of Potter's dawdling hands, pushing them down his own arse.

"Want a finger first?" Potter gives his bum a squeeze. "You could try a different one, see what you like."

Draco gives an aggrieved sigh. "Just stick your prick in me, _Harry_. I've been waiting all night."

Potter chuckles. "You could have said, you know."

"I was sleeping," Draco reminds him.

He can feel the smile pressed against the back of his neck as Potter slides his cock in between his arsecheeks.

The belly bumping into his back is a rather new feeling, but the quick tingle of protection spells and the warm slick of lubrication is familiar. And also all non-verbal and wandless, yet again.

Draco's not sure how he feels about the idea of Potter being suave in bed. But he doesn't have too long to dwell on it, at least, because Potter's gripping his hip and finally, _finally_ pushing inside of him.

Draco follows the smell of bacon down into a cavernous basement kitchen.

He'd have thought at least one house-elf would have come with the Black house, but now that he's seen all the dust and neglected antique furniture, he's unsurprised to find Potter alone in a kitchen large enough for a dozen house-elves.

On the rare occasions in the past when he'd let himself contemplate the improbable possibility of engaging in anything resembling sexual intercourse with Potter, the most he'd ever been able to imagine had been an angry fuck and a disdainful parting.

And the few times Draco's spent the entirety of a night with a pull it has always ended with one of them shooing the other out long before breakfast was a possibility.

So he hadn't quite been prepared to exit the shower and find that Potter had set a neatly folded t-shirt and sweatsuit bottoms out for him.

Which were not the sort of clothes one would wear if one was planning to be shooed out shortly.

He'd looked between them and his Auror robes still lying discarded on the floor. It would have been just as easy to cast cleaning and unwrinkling charms on them — and he'd have to anyway, seeing as they were both still expected at work this morning. It would have been the safer, less presumptuous option, certainly.

And so, having chosen the loungewear instead, he's feeling a bit awkward and wrong-footed standing in the door of the kitchen.

Potter turns from the range, spotting him with a surprised, "Draco, I — you're here."

"Where else would I be?"

"I was worried you might..." But Potter doesn't finish the sentence, just shakes his head as a slow grin spreads on his face. "I mean, I'm glad you're here, Draco. You look really nice in my dressing gown."

"Oh." Draco's unable to keep from returning his smile, at least a little, even as he tucks the dressing gown tighter around himself. He's not sure if it's obvious that he'd stolen it because the clothes Potter had chosen had left his arms uncovered.

Potter offers, "I'm making us breakfast."

"I see that." Draco tries not to give away the relief at how the 'us' removes any uncertainty about whether he was supposed to stay. "Do you normally prefer your bacon burnt?"

"Oh. Shit." Potter turns quickly back to the pan.

Draco leans against the doorway as he takes in the image of Potter attempting to salvage their breakfast.

His hair's a proper mess, sticking up worse than usual in the back. He's still in a t-shirt and pyjama bottoms, and they're both victims of an engorgio charm, judging from the distorted the Chudley Cannons logo of the top and irregular tartan pattern of the bottoms. But they're snug enough around his belly and bum that he must have cast it a while ago. At least before the new weight, now inching towards a full stone, that he's put on in the last weeks.

Trust Potter to make one of the most elementary of charms stick long enough to outgrow it when most wizards would have woken up strangled by the clothes popping back to their original sizes that first night.

It's a strange thing to be reminded it's supposedly the most powerful wizard of their age currently burning breakfast in his kitchen, looking chubby and sleep-rumpled and more inclined to a cuddle than playing hero of the wizarding world.

When Draco finally walks over to him, he's rewarded with a smile and kiss before Potter turns back to the range. He's vanished the burnt pieces and there's new bacon and sausage sizzling in the pan now.

Draco picks up Potter's hand, making him swap the spatula to his other one, and finds the finger he'd chosen for himself the night before. He traces it contemplatively with the tips of his own fingers.

Potter's attention snaps down to it. He licks his lips.

"You liked my finger."

As much as Draco would prefer not to feed the prat's ego, he thinks that was rather obvious.

"You like being fingered," Potter continues in a low voice, meeting his eyes. Draco allows him a nod. "I could tell." Potter bites his lip. "You were so good at being fingered."

The compliment doesn't even make sense, but Draco still has to pretend that he doesn't bask in it. He tells him, "I'm good at a lot of things, in case you haven't noticed."

"I noticed. You're so..." Potter shakes his head, lips twitching up, then flips a piece of bacon onto its other side. "You know, you kept saying you liked my arse, I thought you might have wanted to fuck me instead."

"I said it once," Draco huffs. "Don't make a big deal, Potter."

Potter laughs. "You're supposed to call me Harry now."

"That's only when I want you to fuck me," Draco reminds him.

"Ah, my mistake."

He catches Potter's smile from the side as he leans in closer to Draco. Draco reaches down to give his bum a squeeze. He figures he's allowed, now that they're talking about it.

Potter makes a contented sound and flips another piece of bacon.

Draco slides his hand around to where his side rounds over the snug waist of his sleeping bottoms. He pushes up the hem of his t-shirt and runs his fingers over the jagged line of a stretch mark.

He'd seen these stretch marks that first day in the Duelling Room when Potter's t-shirt had kept riding up his belly. Draco had frantically searched himself in the mirror afterwards, having never considered that he'd developed any himself. He'd already been plotting how he might order one of Pansy's stretch mark eliminating salves under an assumed name, but instead of stretch marks he'd found the scar of Hecate's Curse slithering over his hip, disfiguring him far more than a few pale lines ever could.

Potter's cracking eggs into the pan now and getting out slices of bread.

"A full English, Potter?" Draco dances his fingers over his pot belly.

"Er, yeah." Potter turns to him with a small smile. "Hope that's okay. I wasn't sure what you might like."

"It'll do."

Draco rubs lightly down the curve of his middle, feeling the irregular engorgioed fabric stretched across it. Potter's rather far from _rotund_, but he's still very _round_ right here.

He settles his hand over the comfortable top of his belly and manfully decides to delay teasing him about making himself a full English on a weekday until later.

He's never had anyone cook for him before — at least not without the aid of a house-elf — and, while it may be his first proper morning-after, he's fairly certain it's not generally accepted etiquette to bring up the weight one's lover has been gaining.

Potter divides the eggs onto two plates and says, "You should tell me what you like, you know. So I can make it for you next time."

Draco thinks. "I suppose I usually have pastries?"

"Oh!" Potter turns to face him, looking oddly surprised, and also oddly pleased. "You like sweet things."

Draco feels caught out. He'd hardly be in this situation if he didn't. And he'd be a good deal closer to his old weight by now if he didn't have his house-elf reward him with tea and cakes every time he ate a salad. "A bit too much, obviously."

"No, no," Potter says immediately. "No, I _like_ that you like sweet things."

Draco wonders if he's gone mad.

"I like it a lot." Potter reaches for his hips, pulling him closer. "I was worried you'd say you skipped breakfast. Or only ate a salad."

Draco can't help a laugh. "Potter, I hate salads."

"I know." Potter's lips twitch. "Why do you think I keep trying to get you to stop eating them?"

Draco rolls his eyes. Then, thinking about it some more, he amends, "I don't mind a fruit salad. I like strawberries."

Potter's smile is soft. "I'll make you strawberries and cream next time. And pastries."

"And ruin my diet completely?" Draco raises an eyebrow. Though it's not like Potter's fry-up isn't going to do just that. Or as if pastries, plural, don't do that every other morning.

"It's fortunate you've never needed to be on one, then."

Draco narrows his eyes at Potter's smug look. He looks like he thinks he's caught him in some clever logical trap.

"I'll feed you strawberries next time," Potter promises with a kiss. He turns back to take the last of their breakfast off the range and Draco suddenly realizes, _next time_.


	9. Chapter 9

Apparently, Potter's idea of wooing is making Draco go on runs and do extra stretches.

"This is unacceptable," Draco informs him, hip twinging.

Potter nudges his back. "Bend forwards." 

"You told me you were taking me on a date."

"I am. I'm taking you to dinner."

"Is it a pub?" Draco asks suspiciously.

"It's not a pub," Potter says, barely suppressed smile on his lips. "It even has pudding. But you have to finish your stretches first."

Draco considers him for a moment, then warns, "It won't count as a date if you don't rim me after."

The first night Potter stays at Draco's house, Draco informs him that, no, he doesn't have any clothes that will fit him and that, also no, he is not allowed to ruin Draco's clothes with enlargement charms.

"You didn't even look," Potter complains, opening Draco's wardrobe. "You might have something that fits."

Draco eyes him. The shadows of the fire highlight the round curves of his belly and bum, each making the other look bigger. His cock is soft but not much smaller than it was when it was hard just now. The firelight flickers over the muscles of his thighs.

His body looks just as aggravating as it was when Draco had caught him in the changing room. It also looks a few pounds further away from fitting into Draco's sizes.

Potter turns from where he's snooping and his eyes go to where Draco's cock is getting harder again under his sleeping bottoms. A look of realization comes over his face.

"You just want me naked," he accuses. "You're being a Slytherin."

"I _am_ a Slytherin," Draco reminds him.

Potter crosses his arms over his chest. "It's cold."

"Fortunately, we're wizards, Potter." Draco rolls his eyes and aims his wand at the fireplace. It surges into more vigorous flames.

Potter's eyes flick back down to Draco's cock and he licks his lips. The fact that Draco's getting hard again just looking at the prat is hardly going to help his overconfidence problem. But at least Draco can celebrate beating Potter in refractory time.

It's about time he beat the Boy Who Lived at _something_.

"Fine," Potter says finally. "But you have to take off your clothes too."

Draco narrows his eyes at him. "_I_ make the rules here. This is my house." Potter opens his mouth, but before he can protest, Draco adds, "And I have some sense of decorum."

"_Draco_."

Draco refuses to be budged by Potter's pout. Nightclothes are far more flattering than nudity on him. He refuses to lie to himself on that point. Potter hardly needs to be confronted by the remnants of Hecate's Curse, even more repulsive in the light. The wobble of the flabby roll on his stomach. The Dark Mark that might have been faded on skin like Potter's but still stands out stark on his own pale arm.

"You can wear my dressing gown," Draco concedes.

Potter, despite winning the standoff, looks a bit disappointed before going to retrieve the dressing gown from the toilet. It doesn't wrap as far around him as a dressing gown should, but it still fits well enough to knot the tie around his belly.

He crawls into bed, next to Draco on top of the covers, and rubs a hand down his side.

"Why are you clothes so small," he complains with a yawn.

"They're not small, they're _fitted_," Draco informs him. "Some of us prefer clothing that actually fits us."

He's hardly going to mention how a good portion of those clothes in his wardrobe are new. Let alone mention that, as he's only lost a few pounds, his older clothes still a squeeze and the new ones don't even need to be re-tailored yet.

"My clothes fit," Potter protests sleepily.

"_Nothing_ you own fits you," Draco corrects him. "It's bloody aggravating."

Potter starts bringing over his own clothes after that, and he doesn't take them back to his when he leaves, forcing Draco to enlarge the inside of his wardrobe so there's room for them.

Draco doesn't bring anything over to Potter's, as they spend more time at Draco's than at Grimmauld Place. Draco's house is smaller and exponentially less opulent, but at least it's not filled with dust and snippy portraits and creepily empty rooms. _And_ it comes with a house-elf.

And Draco might have bought it with Malfoy money, but it's not a _Malfoy_ ancestral home. Which means that one is far less likely to encounter dark artefacts in the nooks and crannies.

Potter makes him connect it to the Black House on the floo network, which was something Draco had been very specific about preventing in his instructions to the contractors he'd hired on moving in.

Not that he'd ever expected Potter to try to contact him, but better to be prepared for all eventualities.

It's one week later and the second week that Draco hasn't lost any weight.

"He doesn't need to anyways," Potter says. He's got that righteous set to his jaw again. Draco glares at him.

"Actually," McGreelty says, glancing down at his records. "It might not be a bad idea for him to stick a bit closer to his diet. He's not that far under his Auror Standard and he's still several pounds from where he was..."

He trails off at Draco's quelling glare.

"He'd pass all the tests if you re-did them today, you know," Potter interrupts. Draco's glare isn't working nearly as well on him.

"He does seem to be making rather a lot of progress on his fitness, that's true."

"You could talk about me as if I'm actually in the room, you know," Draco interrupts.

"We'll be re-testing both of you in a couple of weeks, actually," McGreelty continues. He turns back to Potter with a brighter look on his face. "Now, Auror Potter, I must congratulate you on your first week without gaining any weight!"

Draco rolls his eyes as he proceeds to praise Potter for the same thing he'd just lectured Draco for, _I knew if you just stuck to your diet it would only be a matter of time_. Potter's been eating less off a diet than he ever did when he was nominally on one. Draco's tempted to tell McGreelty how Potter had taken his advice to feed his unread P.R.A.T. instructions to Draco's Snargaluff — which had proceeded to gag it up, along with its breakfast, and Draco had to banish it all instead. Except Draco would rather not risk being reported for possession of illegal plants.

It's an odd thing, anyways, having _Harry Bloody Potter_ taking advice from _Draco Malfoy_. Odder, even, than _Harry Bloody Potter_ taking him on dates, or ruining his own diet with expensive chocolate truffles, or giving him soft, tender kisses until they both fall asleep.

Arthur Weasley catches Draco on a day during which Draco has not tried hard enough to avoid Potter.

He's coming out of the cupboard that is the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office and he's holding a beeping contraption in his hands.

"Ah, so the rumours are true!"

"They are not," Draco snaps. Then asks loudly, over the obnoxious beeping. "What rumours?"

He wonders if it's the rumours that he and Potter have resolved their blood feud. He vigorously denies them every time but it's getting harder to convince people with the way Potter follows him around and holds his hand and sits too close.

It's as if Potter has no appreciation for the effort Draco has gone to over the years to keep the rumours of said blood feud alive.

Case in point, Potter doesn't scoot away _or_ remove his arm from around Draco. He's been spending the better part of the morning peering over Draco's shoulder and unhelpfully interfering with Draco's attempts at breaking some newly obtained coded communications.

"Ron told you?" Potter asks.

"Indeed, he was very excited. Now," Weasley holds out the contraption. "Might you have an idea how to make this thing quiet down?"

"Did you try the off button?"

"Aha!" Weasley exclaims when he finds it and the obnoxious beeping stops. "I always forget how ingenious Muggles are in attaching their own _finite incantatum_ to everything they make."

"What rumours?" Draco asks again.

"I told you he'd come around eventually, didn't I?" Weasley chuckles and slaps Potter on the shoulder. "Don't forget you're both invited over for Molly's Sunday roast."

"We wouldn't miss it," Potter says, grinning.

"What rumours? Is the whole Weasley family gossiping about me now?" Draco demands again once Weasley has walked away. "And what's this _roast_?"

Draco gains a quarter of a pound.

"I didn't even know we were counting in quarter pounds," he grumbles that night, frowning down at his stomach. He blames it on the Weasleys' roast. Every time he'd put his fork down, yet another freckled red head would attempt to make conversation with him. He'd been forced to go through three very full plates before dessert had even been served.

"Me either," Potter says.

"It's your fault."

Potter's lips quirk into a smile. "Just because I _lost_ a quarter pound doesn't mean it's _my_ fault."

Draco rolls his eyes. As if Potter doesn't know full well everyone's tendency to change the rules so he'll win. McGreelty had clearly been desperate to find some way to praise Boy Who Lived this week.

Their dessert plates, with crumbs of the cream cakes Potter had brought over, are on table in front of them. As things with Potter tend to, it has turned into a cuddle on the sofa. A cuddle that Draco is tolerating only because it involves kisses and Potter's bum within a squeezable distance.

Potter says, "I like being off a diet."

His belly is pushing into Draco's side. Draco gives it a poke between the straining buttons of his shirt. "When were you ever _on_ a diet?"

Potter shoves his hand away with a laugh. "It's hard to be motivated for _Robards_. But if someone I cared about, you know, _cared_, I could give it a proper go."

Draco stills. "What?"

"I do know I could lose a few." Potter places a hand on his belly and quirks a sheepish smile at him. "I mean, I'd rather be a bit fat than skinny like I used to be, but I wouldn't have minded still fitting into my old robes. Or my current ones." He looks down. "Or this shirt, either."

"And so if someone you cared about—" Draco starts. "You mean, like a _boyfriend_ you cared about?"

"Er, yeah?"

"Well, fuck you, Potter."

"Wait, what?"

Anger tightens Draco's chest, wrapping around the hurt that sinks deeper inside. He shakes off Potter's touch and stands up to glare at him, hands fisted at his sides.

"I wasn't the one who started this," he spits out.

"Draco—" Potter stands up and reaches for him. Draco flinches back.

"_You're_ the one who bloody started this. And you're the one who's told the whole Ministry and all the Weasleys I'm your boyfriend. And you're the one who's brought over so many clothes I had to expand my wardrobe." He paces and continues ranting as he feels Potter staring at him. He's just getting to _And you're the one who keeps saying 'next time'_ when Potter grabs his arms and forces him to look into big concerned eyes.

"Draco, I really don't know what you're thinking that I said, but—"

"I'm not a complete idiot, Potter." Draco shakes off his hands. "I know I'm hardly anyone's ideal boyfriend. But you're the one who said I was _your_ boyfriend all while you were, what? Planning to leave me for someone prefers you'd be on some miserable diet?"

Potter's mouth drops open. "Do you actually think — Draco, you do know I was talking about _you_, right?"

"No, you _obviously_ weren't," Draco snaps.

"Who else would I have been—"

"I'm the one who told you to feed your diet to my Snargaluff."

"That was before I kissed you, though," Potter says.

"Yeah, about five minutes before." Draco huffs and crosses his arms over his chest. "Can you seriously think I'd have kissed you back if I cared that you eat too much pub food? I'd just watched you put on a bloody stone, Potter."

"It wasn't quite that much."

"It was close." Draco eyes him for a moment. He seems rather earnest. "You were really talking about _me_?" Potter nods. "You were actually asking _me_ if I cared that you're terrible at dieting?"

"Well, I knew you didn't mind. That was obvious," Potter says defensively. "But I have put on a lot more weight than I'd thought and you still could've preferred—"

"You're an idiot," Draco tells him, still a bit angry and incredulous. "I've seen your abs, Potter, and—"

"You have?"

"The whole world has," Draco reminds him, but Potter still looks confused. "The Witch Weekly cover? You were nineteen and shirtless and covered in dirt?"

"Oh," Potter says dully. "That one."

"How many have there been?" Draco demands. "No, never mind. I don't want to know."

"Er, did you like it, then?"

Draco tries not to look like someone who still has it stashed in his attic.

"It's all right if you did—"

"Your abs were bloody boring," Draco interrupts him. "And what would I want with a skinny arseless bastard, anyway?"

"Hey, I had an arse."

"If I didn't kick you out of my bed — which, I certainly would've, you know," Draco continues, warming to the topic. "You probably would have bruised me with all your bones poking out and then insisted on a cuddle that you would have been utterly terrible at..."


	10. Chapter 10

Potter pushes Draco against the wall of the changing room, mouth hot and demanding. Draco closes his eyes, head falling back. He buries his fingers in the mess of his hair.

Some things Potter likes to do the hard way, without magic, like cooking and undressing Draco. And he's shoving off his cape, his robes, and is working on unbuttoning his waistcoat now. 

"Wait," Draco croaks out between panting breaths. He opens his eyes to the bright light of the changing room.

"Draco," Potter breathes out and keeps kissing down Draco's neck as he shoves his waistcoat off his shoulders.

"Wait," Draco tries again, a bit louder. He pushes Potter's hands away from where they're reaching for his shirt now. "Stop."

Potter pulls back, blinking at him. "Draco, what...?" 

The illusion of a sunlit sky coming in through the high changing room windows lighting him from behind. His glasses are askew and his hair even more askew.

"Not now," Draco says.

"You don't want this?"

Of course Draco _wants_ this. Wants this more than almost anything else right now.

They're both been hard since halfway through their duel when the reckless tension between them had built and built between them and then finally broke and Potter had pushed him back into the changing room.

But Draco also wants—

Potter kisses him and says, "Let me blow you in the shower."

"This is a public changing room," Draco reminds him.

Potter glances at the door and casts a quick locking spell with the sort of effortless power that Draco, the Ministry's best curse-breaker, would be hard-pressed to break.

Draco tries his usual deflection. "And I have some sense of decorum—"

"No you don't."

"What?"

"No, you don't," Potter repeats, eyes twinkling. His hands run up Draco's sides, thigh pushes temptingly against his cock. "I heard you."

"You heard me what?"

"A couple of weeks ago. You were wanking in the showers," he says.

Draco stares at him. "You _heard_ me?" 

"You hadn't even cast a silencing spell." Potter smiles. "But I'll cast one if you want."

"You caught me wanking off after walking in on you naked and you were surprised I was _gay_?" Draco demands, incredulous.

"Well, I _hoped_, Draco. Obviously. But maybe the timing was just coincidence." He reaches for Draco's shirt again. "Now, will you let me blow you in the showers or not?"

Draco stills Potter's hands. Can't stand the thought of dismay in Potter's eyes on seeing what's underneath his clothes, of him nobly continuing despite the sight—

"Please," Potter says. "I'll finger you first."

"Cancel the sunlight spells."

Potter pulls back, lips parting. He looks up at the false windows. "Why?"

"Cancel the sunlight spells and turn off the lights," Draco says. "And you can do whatever you want to me."

"What if what I want is to see you?"

"I have some sense of—"

"Decorum, right." Potter looks annoyed.

Draco sighs and tucks his shirt back into his trousers. "Potter, you don't _want_ to see me, all right?"

"Why am I asking, then?"

"I've got scars—"

"And I don't?"

"Not like I do."

Potter hesitates. "Sectum sempra? I thought it didn't—"

"It didn't." Draco's hand goes involuntarily to his side. "This one — it's worse in the light, Potter."

"I know."

A horrible thought occurs to him. "That day in the showers—"

"Bloody hell, Draco, I just heard you. I didn't _look_," Potter says. "I saw the curse the day you got it."

"In hospital?" That doesn't even make sense. He'd bloody hope the mediwitches and wizards wouldn't have had had him nude in bed.

"I saw you in the field," Potter corrects.

Draco blinks.

"Mine was the team called in when Magpie messed up."

Draco stares at him.

"The curse just kept spreading," Potter says. "Over your skin, deeper inside— It was eating you alive and we couldn't stop it. You were hardly breathing by the time I..."

He looks away.

"You were the one who got the Muggles out," Draco realizes.

"So you really didn't know I was there." Potter shakes his head and exhales a long breath. "I didn't know if no one had wanted to tell you or you just hadn't wanted to bring it up. Yeah, I got the Muggles out but I barely even remember that part. I don't even know what I wrote on the mission report. All I could think about was you and — I bloody carried you, you know. I apparated to St Mungo with you in my arms, Draco."

Draco feels horrified at the thought. He remembers the artefact out of the corner of his eye. Remembers the flash, green and purple, that had smashed through his shield spell. Remembers the agony in his side, the way his chest was too tight to breathe.

But the next thing he remembers is nightmares of purple and green and pain, and then waking up and being told that over a week had passed. Doesn't remember Potter but remembers his father brandishing the Daily Prophet headline proclaiming him a hero.

"So I've seen it anyways, Draco. And I bet it was a lot worse then." Potter reaches for him. "And even if it wasn't, do you still not know me at all? Is it so hard to believe I care more about you being alive than about a bloody scar?"

Draco steps out of Potter's grasp and sighs. "Potter—"

"Give me a little bloody credit, Draco." Potter's eyes darken behind his glasses. "You promised you would."

"That was about the Dark Mark," Draco reminds him.

"Yeah, and you're still wearing long sleeves."

"Well, excuse me for thinking you might not want the constant reminder that you're fucking a Death Eater," Draco spits out.

"Are you serious?" Potter demands. "That's such — no. You know what, I can't do this! You don't bloody trust me at all, do you?"

Potter's lock spell crashes behind him as he storms out of the changing room.

"I'm sorry."

Draco eyes the sputtering, coughing mess of a man who's emerging from his fireplace.

The man seems to be attempting to say something else, but Draco can't make out the rest amidst all the hacking. Draco sighs, sets down Cursebreakers Monthly, and leans forwards to retrieve his wand. With a quick flick, soot disappears from the man's face, clothes, and, presumably, his lungs. There's nothing to be done for the prat's hair but that's nothing new.

Potter's wearing his everyday robes unfastened -- they don't fasten anymore, Draco's seen him try -- and his pot belly more than fills out the shirt underneath, rounding over the waist of his trousers.

Draco kicks his feet back up onto the table, crossing them at the ankles.

"Er, thanks," Potter says. "Never really got the hang of the floo."

"You don't say." Draco picks his magazine back up so he has something to pretend to read.

"Hermione says I need to apologize," Potter continues in a rush. "I'd have been here sooner except I had to find the antidote for the Very Pustulent Pox." At Draco's raised eyebrow, he adds, "Er, she might've hexed me, as well. In some sensitive places."

"Well, at least _my_ various deformities aren't catching."

There's silence and then Potter asks, brow knotting, "Draco, did you really think I'd be bothered by a _scar_? Do you really not know me at all? Or how much I..."

He trails off, looking frustrated.

"I thought it best not to chance it ruining the mood," Draco says evenly.

"When has the mood ever been in danger of being ruined?" Then Potter's flabbergasted look turns contrite. "I mean, besides by me trying to get you to take your clothes off when you don't want me to. I really am sorry, by the way. I didn't mean to— I just don't understand how you could have thought I'd care about a couple of scars."

"Potter," Draco starts.

Potter looks at him. The big green eyes behind his glasses are really far too earnest to belong to a grown man.

Fuck it. There's no mood to ruin right now, either, and Potter thinking that Draco's insecure is fast becoming more pathetic than the way he looks under his clothes. At least it'll be Potter's own bloody fault when he's the one who has to look at his Dark Mark and sickly scar and flabby stomach and wobbly arse.

"Fine, you bloody git."

Draco grabs his wand and stands up.

Potter steps forwards and reaches for him, stilling his wand arm. "What are you doing, Draco?"

"What do you think I'm doing?" Draco demands. "Banishing my bloody clothes, obviously. And don't act surprised. You're Harry Bloody Potter. Aren't you used to having exactly what you want?"

"Draco," Potter entreats. "I don't want it like _this_. Didn't you notice that I came here to apologize for making you think that?"

"Then what the bloody hell do you want?"

Potter puts a hand on Draco's waist and rubs his side, right where, underneath his clothes, is his curse scar.

"What I want," he says finally. "Is for you to _trust_ me."

Draco looks at him for a long moment. "I don't _not_ trust you."

"Then come back to mine," Potter tells him. "I might've made something for you while I was waiting for the pustules to go away."


	11. Chapter 11

"What the bloody hell is this?"

Potter fake-pouts. "I knew you'd laugh at me."

"Was this Granger's idea, too?"

"Ron's, actually."

Draco steps from the chill of the Black House into the heat of a warming charm. Candles flare to life as he steps inside the toilet as he takes in the clawfoot tub filled with pink bubbles. He turns and raises an eyebrow at Potter.

Then has to flick a heart-shaped bubble off his own nose before it makes him sneeze.

"Erm," Potter says.

Draco rolls his eyes, sighs, and pulls out his wand. The tub expands to twice its size, double wide, edges higher.

The water rushes in to fill it back up to the top, sending heart-shaped bubbles spilling over the edges.

"If I'm going to be subjected to a Weasley bubble bath, you are, too," Draco informs Potter.

"You don't have to," Potter says, but he doesn't hide the hopeful tone in his voice very well.

Draco reaches for his wand again, about to dim the candles out of habit. But then he glances at Potter and goes for the buttons of his own shirt instead.

"Draco." Potter steps forwards and reaches to cover his fingers. "Can I?"

Draco nods, and drops his hands so Potter can take over. Potter gives him a soothing kiss and Draco wishes he hadn't made this all such a big deal.

As Potter unbuttons Draco's shirt, his fingers brush over the bare skin of his chest. Draco's chest is thin and lightly toned. Not quite as toned as Potter's, but he doesn't have the same softness over the muscle that Potter does, either.

There's some softness when Potter gets lower, though. But his stomach doesn't slope out the way Potter's does and, between dieting and "core work", there's also less of it than a few weeks ago.

"I'm not who I was supposed to be, am I?" Draco asks, self-deprecatingly.

Potter glances up. "Who were you supposed to be?"

"A catch?" Draco suggests. "A Malfoy? Rich? Beautiful? A perfect pureblood? The envy of all respectable society?"

"Sounds horrible," Potter's knuckles graze the soft of Draco's stomach as he unbuttons the last of his shirt. His green eyes are sincere behind his glasses. "I would've hated you."

"You already hated me, Potter," Draco reminds him.

"Never as much as you thought." Potter's lips curve up into a small smile as he pushes Draco's shirt off his shoulders. "And not as much as I would've hated a 'perfect pureblood', believe me."

"Yeah, well," Draco huffs as Potter reaches for the buttons of his trousers. "I wouldn't have been gay, so it wouldn't have mattered."

"Would you not have been?" Potter raises his eyebrows as he pushes Draco's trousers down and lets Draco step out of them, and his shoes and socks.

"I would've married quite well. A Greengrass, most likely, though I'd have gone through a few seasons of traditional courting first to find the lucky witch," Draco informs him with a haughty sniff. "Would've had perfect little pureblood children, too."

"Naturally," Potter says dryly.

Draco thinks about it. "I suppose you could have been my lover on the side. You'd just have had to be discreet about it."

"No hand-holding?" Potter asks.

"Well, certainly not in the Ministry Atrium."

Potter chuckles and steps back, looking at him.

It hits Draco that he's naked now. He looks down at his pale body, lit by the hundreds of candles floating along the walls. He sucks in his stomach a bit, but there's nothing to be done for the rest of the sight.

He wishes he hadn't made such a big deal about this. It's making him anxious and Potter still being fully clothed isn't helping.

"Why do you lie so much, Draco?" Potter asks.

"I don't lie," Draco lies. Then adds, "And it's rude to stare, Potter."

"You lie all the time," Potter argues. "And mostly to yourself."

"I don't lie to myself," Draco protests. That's his _rule_.

"Who's lying to you, then?" Potter folds his arms over his chest. "Your mirrors?"

Draco's mirrors mostly remind him when his robes are crooked or a stray hair escapes his pomade. The one in his foyer also likes to ask him when that handsome young Potter boy will be returning.

"No one's lying." And, then, because he's tired of being self-conscious about being the only one naked, he directs Potter, "Take off your clothes."

Potter distractedly reaches for the collar of his robes without taking his eyes off Draco. "You're bloody gorgeous, you know."

There's an uncomfortable amount of intense sincerity in his voice. Draco averts his eyes. "The bath's getting cold."

Water sloshes over the sides of the tub as Potter joins him, straddling Draco's thighs as he leans down to kiss him.

Then he looks down, stroking a hand over Draco's side. 

"I can't believe you thought I wouldn't think you were sexy, Draco," Potter says, stroking over the gnarled flesh. Too many of the bubbles have popped for him to hide from Potter's gaze.

"Potter," Draco snaps, annoyed. "You can say you like my prick or something if you must. But don't _pretend_ there's anything attractive about _that_."

As if to demonstrate, a green light slithers under Draco's scarred skin then pops out of existence.

"I'm not saying it's _pretty_," Potter says. "And I hate that it hurts you. Of course I wish it wasn't there. But you lived through it." He touches Draco's forearm, where it's rested over the side of the tub, tracing over the outline of the skull. "Just like you lived through this. I think that's sexy."

"That I lived through it?" Draco says sceptically. "Are you confessing to a fetish for living people, Potter?"

Potter chuckles. "Do you have a problem with that?"

"Well, _I'm_ a necrophiliac," Draco tells him. "So I'm afraid we're entirely incompatible."

"You are not." Potter laughs and kisses him. They kiss a bit more. Draco runs his hands down Potter's sides, gives his bum a squeeze. Potter's getting hard against his thigh. 

He pulls back enough to run a hand over Draco's stomach. He murmurs, "You're so sexy here."

"Potter." Draco tries to push his hand away but the git won't let him.

"Don't argue." Potter meets his eyes stubbornly. "Draco, I fucking love your body, you know that. You _know_ that."

Draco exhales, letting his head fall back against the tub and his eyes fall shut. 

He has to reposition Potter's hands quite a bit when they try to sneak over his stomach when they cuddle. But in the dark, when he's hard and aching for the prat, he'll allow attention to his stomach. And Potter does spend rather a lot of time giving kisses and squeezes and love bites to the roll under his belly button that other lovers have had the manners to skip over.

If only because he's had a night filled with too many exhausting emotions, Draco will admit that he might not entirely mind it.

"And I love that you like sweets," Potter is saying as he gives said roll a gentle squeeze. "I love that you have a secret tummy."

"Shut up, Potter."

Potter chuckles and lets Draco bat his hand away this time. But he still insists, "I do, though."

He kisses Draco before Draco can protest any more.

Draco allows himself to be distracted by kisses, and then distracted by Potter's belly. It's in the way, as usual. And stubborn and round, also as usual. But there's a fascinating wobble to it in the bath.

He wobbles it some more.

Potter traps Draco's hand against the round side of his belly and complains, "You're making me feel a bit fat."

"You _are_ a bit fat," Draco reminds him. And then he kisses the prat to stop himself from doing something regrettable, like saying that _Potter's_ weight problem might possibly be a bit sexy, too.


	12. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're following along as it's posted, the last 3 chapters are new tonight, so start with chapter 10!

Ms Hortensia Crickerly peers over her glasses at Potter, and then at Draco, and then Potter again. She's got both their Records of Health & Fitness unrolled on the desk front of her. One scroll has a PASS stamped next to the last entry. The other has PROVISIONAL PASS.

Draco doesn't need two guesses to figure out who got the latter. Potter may have turned out to be brilliant in bed, but he's still an annoying cheat. 

"Auror Potter," Ms Hortensia Crickerly says. "On your reassessment, your weight is even further into the Unacceptable range for aurors."

"Er," Potter says. "I still passed, though, right?"

"He's lost a quarter of a pound, did you hear?" Draco adds helpfully.

Ms Hortensia Crickerly gives Draco a displeased look and then turns back to Potter. "It seems you've been granted a _Provisional_ Pass."

"Excellent!" Potter turns to grin at him and Draco rolls his eyes.

"Auror Malfoy," Ms Hortensia Crickerly says. "You, however, have been granted passing marks in every section and without any _provisions_."

Potter shoots him another grin and squeezes his hand.

"Well, thank you for this very useful meeting," Draco tells her, moving to stand up. "Couldn't have just owled us the news, of course."

"There is one more matter, Auror Malfoy. Auror Potter." Ms Hortensia Crickerly peers pointedly over the desk at their joined hands. "It's come to my attention that there has been a violation of the Prohibition Against Interdepartmental Fraternization."

Draco glances at Potter and Potter just winks back at him.

Draco rolls his eyes again but decides he won't mind Potter's exemption from any and all rules quite so much in this instance. 

"Er, so, I need to talk to you about something."

Draco looks at Potter across the pub table. He's got a fish and chips in front of him with his usual extra fish and extra chips.

He steals one of Potter's chips.

"I talked to Robards before we met with Hortensia." Potter nudges his plate towards Draco. "It turns out Neville's been partnered with Oscar Spindleberry these past weeks."

"Is this supposed to be news?" Draco tells him. "I have actually been showing up to work, you know."

"Apparently they're proving to be quite a good team."

Draco begins plotting an untraceable diarrhoeal hex for Spindleberry.

"And I haven't had a regular partner since Hermione got promoted," Potter continues. "And so, now that that 'blood feud' you made up has been resolved, Robards wanted us to pair up." 

Draco eyes him suspiciously.

"He's wanted to for a while, actually. You're always getting the most dangerous assignments with your cursebreaking and your, you know—" Potter glances at Draco's covered forearm. "—Special connections? But you're too valuable to have an inexperienced partner guarding your back. I mean, look what happened the last time."

Draco raises an eyebrow. "And so Robards, in his infinite wisdom, thought he'd put me with the wizard who's won the award for Most Likely to Not Have a Plan five years running?"

"Six years running, actually. And _you_ always have a plan, so it doesn't matter," Potter says. "Anyways, I told him I couldn't say yes until I'd checked with you."

Draco contemplates Potter for a long moment. "You're lying."

"Erm."

He waits.

"Well, not about _all_ of it," Potter argues. "I mean, fine. So it might've been me who suggested it, not Robards. And it might've been Robards who said I had to check with you first. But the rest of it's true. And I got some nice advice about the importance of communication in relationships, too."

"I see you've taken it to heart already." Draco smirks and sits back in his chair. "So, what is it like working with The Harry Potter? Should I expect you to ignore my well-laid plans and just run straight towards the first sign of danger you see?"

"Probably," Potter admits.

"And will you keep making me go on runs?"

"I was going to anyways."

"And do stretches?"

Potter promises, "I'll make it worth your while."

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading, hope you enjoyed!


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